Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said the production of good math teachers would again be a priority for her department, after it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with TEACH South Africa.
Part of the agreement involves the deployment of TEACH Ambassadors to South African schools where the results in that subject a particularly poor. In many of those instances, the schools do not actually have a teacher who is qualified to teach mathematics. Part of this project is the goal of promoting the subject of mathematics.
“This large placement (of ambassadors) enables us to achieve a greater impact across the country,” said TEACH South Africa Executive Director Richard Masemola.
“We are proud to partner with the Department of Basic Education to improve the quality of education for children irrespective of their economic background by increasing the pool of quality mathematics teachers in South Africa. School districts in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo had the lowest number of students who passed matric in 2015, we applaud Minister Motshekga for addressing this by ensuring quality mathematics teachers are placed specifically in these areas.”
“In order to build a prosperous, equitable and competitive South Africa, we must invest in high quality education. This is aligned with the goals of the National Development Plan for Education, Training and Innovation,” added Dr. Futhi Mtoba, TEACH South Africa President and Co-Founder.
No one is more excited by the latest development than the Minister herself, who also emphasized that the project does not just end at teaching maths to pupils, adding that it also sought to create more match teachers in future.
“We need to continue to work with our partners in civil society to ensure that we begin to see improvements, not only the numbers of learners who take up mathematics as a subject, but we also want learners to come back into the system as qualified mathematics teachers one day,” said Motshekga
“We come from a past where not all learners have had the opportunity to take mathematics as a subject in school, hence the shortage of qualified mathematics teachers today. We need to work hard to ensure that all learners, no matter their social-economic background have every opportunity available to take up careers of their choice without any limitations,” she added.
Part of the agreement involves the deployment of TEACH Ambassadors to South African schools where the results in that subject a particularly poor. In many of those instances, the schools do not actually have a teacher who is qualified to teach mathematics. Part of this project is the goal of promoting the subject of mathematics.
“This large placement (of ambassadors) enables us to achieve a greater impact across the country,” said TEACH South Africa Executive Director Richard Masemola.
“We are proud to partner with the Department of Basic Education to improve the quality of education for children irrespective of their economic background by increasing the pool of quality mathematics teachers in South Africa. School districts in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo had the lowest number of students who passed matric in 2015, we applaud Minister Motshekga for addressing this by ensuring quality mathematics teachers are placed specifically in these areas.”
“In order to build a prosperous, equitable and competitive South Africa, we must invest in high quality education. This is aligned with the goals of the National Development Plan for Education, Training and Innovation,” added Dr. Futhi Mtoba, TEACH South Africa President and Co-Founder.
No one is more excited by the latest development than the Minister herself, who also emphasized that the project does not just end at teaching maths to pupils, adding that it also sought to create more match teachers in future.
“We need to continue to work with our partners in civil society to ensure that we begin to see improvements, not only the numbers of learners who take up mathematics as a subject, but we also want learners to come back into the system as qualified mathematics teachers one day,” said Motshekga
“We come from a past where not all learners have had the opportunity to take mathematics as a subject in school, hence the shortage of qualified mathematics teachers today. We need to work hard to ensure that all learners, no matter their social-economic background have every opportunity available to take up careers of their choice without any limitations,” she added.
